The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

of the highest enlisted people on the base, in charge of security. SAAC: What was your rank? DISHER: I was an Air Force E-8 at that time. [ Senior Master Sergeant .] I pretty much had access to go any- where, so I went on a little trip to look for him and it didn’t take me very long to find him. I got a chance to talk to him for quite a while. I asked him about his old Shelby. SAAC: He must have been pretty sur- prised when you brought up a car he had owned thirty-five years earlier. It was probably the last thing he ex- pected to be talking about. DISHER: I’m certain it was. He was a junior naval officer at the time he had the car. It was a green GT350 convert- ible. SAAC: He had just graduated An- napolis and was commissioned as a Marine second lieutenant. DISHER: As you would expect, he did- n’t remember too much about the car. SAAC: When did you get out of the Air Force National Guard? DISHER: I was deployed one more time to Israel and then retired in 2008 as an E-9 [ Chief Master Sergeant, an accomplishment in itself ]. SAAC: It’s nice to know that at the conventions you’ll outrank Howard Pardee. He retired from the Coast Guard as an E-8 [ Senior Chief Petty Officer ]. I was am Army First Lieu- tenant and that doesn’t seem to have any affect on him. Maybe you can whip him into shape. When did you get the famous Coral Snake? DISHER: I bought that car in 1991. The convention was in Charlotte that year. SAAC-16. My wife was with me and we saw that car parked in a lot outside the venue. I said, “ That’s cool. Someone painted a ‘68 Shelby orange. You don’t see that very often .” We went over to look at the car and it was for sale. I believe the price was $25,000. There was a copy of the build sheet and it said “special paint.” At that time I was still writing letters [ as opposed to emails, today ] and I wrote to SAAC asking about special paint cars. Your response was something to the effect of, “ Yeah, we know some- thing about them; there are some yel- low ones and some other odd colors The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 35 Ollie North’s ‘68 GT350 in 1968. When Disher caught up with him in Kuwait he wasn’t able to remember very much about it. No surprise there. Disher invited North to visit the base’s security troops at roll call. After Disher restored The Coral Snake it made the concours circuit. It was a the Triple Crown winner – The MCA, the Mid-America show and SAAC, pretty much cementing his reputation as a ‘68 restoration expert. The car was also the inspiration for a 1/18- scale model by the Acme model company. They produced a series of five different special paint cars.